"It is, after all, mostly little, common things that make up our lives."
--Elisabeth Elliot

Thursday, November 27, 2008

The Perfect Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown...

Today is Thanksgiving. Yep. A day to give thanks to everything you hold dear in this world, for everything you have, and for the hardships you are not having to endure.

Here is what I am doing today...the blow by blow, the run-down, the obsessive/compulsive way...

First, I will be awaking at a leisurely pace to a quiet house. I will proceed to the kitchen where I will make myself a Vanilla Chai Latte and sip it quietly while I quickly consume the few chapters that make up my son's Spiderwick Chronicles library book. As I reach the last pages, my family will awaken and we will all go about getting dressed...a beautiful new dress for Teensy, a sweater vest and button up shirt with jeans for Bubba, a sweater and new jeans for Dear Hubby and a lovely skirt ensemble for myself. Dear Hubby will begin cooking bacon and eggs for breakfast which will be accompanied by Egg Nog for them and more Chai for me.

After breakfast, I will start the squash to cooking and the four of us will slip into our jackets for a brisk morning walk around the neighborhood with our two well-behaved dogs, ending back in our yard where we will jump into the huge piles of leaves left by the enormous Oak tree that shades our house. This, of course, will be a wonderful opportunity to take a bunch of pictures in the beautiful autumn colors. Of leaves, of smiles, of family togetherness. Great pictures to take to Grandpa K. when we go to visit him in a few months.

We will brush off the leaves and head back into the house where we will wash up and put on our matching aprons so that we can make my favorite holiday hor'deours...Pinwheels. I take the squash from the oven to cool a bit as Dear Hubby and the kids start the Pinwheels. We slather the cream cheese filled with green chiles and black olives on the tortillas with ease and little mess because we are all skilled Pinwheel makers. Clean up is a breeze.

It's time to pile up into the van with our homemade delights and head to Thanksgiving dinner with the family. We drive over the stream and through the woods to the In-Laws house where we are not the last ones there. We park and the kids run in the door and into the waiting arms of their grandparents. Food smells waft through the air and tempt our tummies and our fingers into snatching pieces everytime the cooks turn their backs.

We feast upon an enormous amount of food with all of our friends and family at our sides. the kids play and eat and laugh with their cousins and again clean up is a breeze.

The games are brought forth with the pie and we play game after game in every part of the house and on every table available. Pictionary, Othello, Catch Phrase, Apple to Apples, Cranium, Checkers, Puzzles...you name it, we'll give it a try. We play until the kids are asleep ont he living room floor watching Scooby Doo and we can barely move our fingers from so much writing and pointing.

We load up the kids and our share of the leftovers and we head back down the hill to our cozy and warm house. We tuck the little ones into their beds and head off to snuggle before falling asleep.

A great Thanksgiving, indeed it was. :)

If you believe that story is true, I have some oceanfront property right here in South Dakota that I would love to sell you. Stay tuned for the follow up of what really went down on this most dreadful of all Thanksgivings.